Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway More than just a road to a bowl of beans

Margaret Flenner knew what she wanted to do as soon as she got home. The Arcata Elementary School principal had been driving around with her teenage daughter in the East Bay area when both noticed a familiar street sign that had been renamed after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The two thought it was a great tribute to the civil rights leader, and decided to bring the idea back home to Arcata.

Days later Mark Wheetley, Arcata's vice mayor, happened to walk into Flenner's office. Without hesitation, Flenner asked him "Why don't we rename one of our streets? Let's rename the Community Parkway sign, it leads right to our Bowl of Beans celebration." The annual benefit honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has been held at the Arcata Community Center for the past 13 years.

Flenner said that Wheetley's response was an immediate 'Let's do it!'

"I spend a lot of time at Arcata Elementary after dropping my kids off, and spend lots of time in the principal's office," Wheetley said. "If you look facing her desk, you will see she has an entire wall filled with a great collage of posters from the Bowl of Beans events. There are pictures of Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King and others. It looks like a Bowl of Beans sanctuary in there. It seemed natural to run with it (the idea)."

Wheetley began to get the wheels in motion shortly after the 2012 Bowl of Beans event. Staff at city hall soon found out renaming a street was something the city had never done before.

"We were cutting new ground here," Wheetley said.

The city staff began researching and designing a street sign that "met the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices requirements for size, number of letters and required number of upper and lower case letters -- some very exciting stuff!" the vice mayor laughed.

One year later, after all the requisite approvals and regulations were satisfied, the new street sign was unveiled at the 2013 Bowl of Beans event.

"One thing I thought about when I began noticing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. boulevards and avenues in other towns is that in (our local) schools we seem to talk about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. just once a year, on his birthday," Flenner said. "It occurred to me that perhaps every time people may drive down a street or boulevard (named after King), kids might be more inclined to ask 'Who is that guy? Who is that doctor?'"

Flenner said she thought the location for the new street sign, at the corner of Union Street and the road leading to playgrounds, athletic fields, the community center and a health club would increase the chances that the public, and especially children, would be more curious to find out about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his life achievements.

"There is a lot of traffic that goes through there. It is a hub of the community and, after all, Martin Luther King represents community in so many ways. It's a perfect spot for it," Wheetley said.

Although the Arcata City Council had approved the street name change last spring, the work of installing the new street sign was put off to coincide with previously scheduled city work at the location, and of course, the 2013 Bowl of Beans event.

Just as they have for years, hundreds of folks showed up for the annual Bowl of Beans ceremony, filling the Arcata Community Center and enjoying bowls of black beans, rice, salad and cornbread muffins while listening to storytellers, third- and fourth-grade students doing a "stomp" and both the Arcata Interfaith Youth Gospel Choir and the full Arcata Interfaith Gospel Choir, which has performed for every Bowl of Beans celebration since the event's inception.

Suddenly the lights to the large community center dimmed, and a spotlight on the unveiling of the new street sign signaled the highlight of the evening as hundreds of folks squeezed together for a group photo and the unveiling of the new Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway street sign. Candle luminaries were lit outside in a long bright trail leading from the community center to the new street sign location.

"Yes We Can" was written in different languages on many of the T-shirts worn by youth, volunteers and community members at this year's Bowl of Beans, much like the attitude Flenner and Wheetley took in coming up with Arcata's newest street name.